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[quote=Anonymous][quote=TheManWithAUsername][quote=Anonymous]Public Service Announcement to ManWithAUsername:

You have interesting points on substance to make but I just can't read your comments anymore because you harp on "Rep/Faux" stuff. It isn't helpful when you assert or assume that those on the right are all being led like a pack of wolves and that everything they do or say is a "tactic." I accept that you believe these things but it just derails the conversation when you keep saying it.

Unless the comment really calls for a discussion of "tactics," could you go back to just accepting the other side's positions for what they are and addressing those?[/quote]
I don't think the rank and file are employing a tactic. That's part of the sad reality. Relative to this, I'd group the Reps roughly as follows:
1) a small group elite leadership in government and media who employ these as tactics, though now perhaps habit or compulsion;
2) a very large group of people thoughtlessly believing it and parroting it, and therefore in great anxiety;
3) a smaller group of people outside of that process.

It's hard to gauge the relative sizes of 2 and 3 because I assume that 2 is more vocal.

It's fairly easy to distinguish between 2 and 3, because people in 2 say ridiculous things like Obama hates business and vilifies business leaders daily. They also tend to use the Rep/Faux talking points, like "class warfare." That's not an assumption; it's a judgment, one with which you're free to disagree.

You say that it's not helpful for me to assert that judgment when I've made it. I think it is helpful for the more thoughtful of us to maintain that perspective, so that instead of pointlessly addressing the fiction we address what's really going on - vulnerable and foolish people being manipulated by powerful and cynical people. When someone makes an absurd and unsupported allegation, it's actually counterproductive to address it, because it just legitimizes the accusation - again, exactly the tactic.

Let's say we're having an argument, and I say, "You seem like a child molester to me." I hope you wouldn't start trying to make your case that you're not. I assume that you'd say, "WTF?" and demand some basis for the statement.[/quote]

Why are you so convinced about the nature of group 2? That would be a very hard thing to be sure of, it seems to me.

When a lot of people say "class warfare" I take them to mean something like telling average and low-income people that the wealthy are harming them somehow and should be better controlled or perhaps punished for their wealth. You may prefer another phrase but it isn't a content-free phrase. And if a lot of people use it because it came from a "talking point," well that's how shorter phrases that convey a larger idea are used. It's a matter of shorthand.

But at least now I know your position. [/quote]

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